Private Moon Race Will Preserve NASA's Historic Lunar Landing Sites

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The 26 teams engaged in a private race to the moon won't run
roughshod over the lunar surface if and when they get there.

The
Google Lunar X Prize is offering a total of $30 million to
the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the moon and
have it complete a variety of tasks. The race will abide by
guidelines NASA has established to protect historic and
scientifically important sites on the moon, NASA and X Prize
officials announced today (May 24).

The Playa Vista, Calif.-based X Prize Foundation will take these
guidelines into account as it judges the plans submitted by the
26 teams still in the competition, officials said.

The aim is to preserve the signs of humanity's first steps on
another celestial body, which were taken by a handful of NASA
Apollo astronauts between 1969 and 1972, and safeguard
ongoing and future lunar science efforts from a potential swarm
of landers and rovers.

NASA developed the guidelines — which aren't mandatory,
enforceable requirements — after analyzing data from various moon
studies and consulting with experts from academia and the
spaceflight community, agency officials said.

The Google Lunar X Prize will award $20 million to the first
privately funded team to successfully land a robot on the
lunar surface, have it move at least 1,650 feet (500 meters) and
beam high-definition imagery back to Earth.

The second team to complete these tasks will receive $5 million.
An additional $4 million in bonus prizes is available for
achieving other feats, such as operating at night, detecting
water ice and traveling more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) on the
lunar surface. Finally, $1 million will go to the team that shows
the greatest effort to encourage diversity in space exploration,
X Prize officials said.

The Google Lunar X Prize expires once all the money has been
awarded, or at the end of 2015.

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